REPORT OF THE LIBRARIAN, 319 



Charlottesville^ Va., was discontinued last year, and the books be- 

 longinfi: to it returned to Washington. Several books not previously 

 in the department Library were added to it from this source. 



The Forest Service now has 169 field libraries, distributed as fol- 

 lows: Six in the district offices, 115 on the national forests, 11 on 

 the purchase areas in the Southern Appalachian and White Moun- 

 tains, six at the experiment stations, and one at the forest-products 

 laboratory at Madison, W^is. During the past year three national 

 forest libi'aries and one experiment station library were discontinued, 

 their headcjuartcrs having been abandoned or combined with others. 

 There are 31,170 field library books altogether, an increase of 1,573 

 over the total of last year. The majority of these consist of free 

 Government or State publications. The amount spent by the Forest 

 Service for books and subscriptions to periodicals for the field dur- 

 ing the year was about $2,000, more than one-half of this amount 

 being for periodicals. 



Previous to this year little work has been done with the field offices 

 of the Offic3 of Markets and Rural Organization. With the develop- 

 ment of the 32 offices of Federal grain supervision, however, such 

 work has become important and at times pressing. A few reference 

 books have been bought for each station, the books being handled and 

 recorded in the library of the office before being mailed to the field. 

 A selected collection of Federal and State bulletins has also been 

 made for each station, and subscriptions for about six well-known 

 grain periodicals have been entered for each. Reference books have 

 also been provided for the branch stations dealing with perishables 

 and those dealing with live stock and meat. 



There are 100 field-station collections in the Bureau of Plant In- 

 dustry, containing approximately 2,200 volumes. The periodicals 

 subscribed for by the bureau for use in the field stations number 285. 



There were few changes in the past year in the location and organi- 

 zation of the libraries of the various bureaus, divisions and offices. 

 The Division of Animal Husbandry was moved in May from 1358 B 

 Street SW, to the Busch Building at 710 E Street NW\, and a larger 

 room was furnished for the use of the library. In June, 1917, the 

 library and reference work relating to the Office of Grain Standardi- 

 zation, which had been conducted in the Bureau of Plant Industry, 

 was consolidated with that of the Office of Markets and Rural Organi- 

 zation, preparatory to the formal transfer of work, which took place 

 on July 1. at which time the name was changed to the Bureau of 

 Markets Library. 



In order better to coordinate the library work of the department 

 and to bring greater cooperation, provision was made by law a few 

 years ago whereby it is legally possible for assistants from the main 

 Library to be detailed temporarily to the bureau and office libraries 

 and librarians from the bureaus and divisions to be detailed to the 

 main Library. Advantage was again taken of this provision during 

 the past year in the temporary transfer of an assistant from the loan 

 desk of the main Library to the Bureau of Plant Industry, and the 

 transfer of a loan-desk assistant from the Bureau of Plant Industry 

 to the main Library. The experience thus gained was helpful to both 

 libraries. 



